Vitiate
by Arthur Hansen
Summary: Team RWBY finally tracks down Salem, but are denied their final confrontation. Pulled into a new world, unbroken and whole, what will four young women do. RWBY ISOTed into the "real world".
1. Injection

"Come on!" Yang shouted as they ran down the wide cave. "Jaune and the others are buying us enough time to get to the mastermind behind the fall of Vale."

"We know already," the ever acerbic Weiss replied, gripping her saber tight with one hand as she shifted its Dust chamber to ice.

"Adam may want to kill them, too. But he wants us dead almost as much," the third member of the team replied.

The last member, Ruby Rose kept quiet as she juggled options. Again she wished she could just sweep them all into her semblance to blast ahead, but that led to traps and getting killed.

The fifteen foot tall cave bent to their right, white light shining from up ahead. All four of them skidded to a halt, taking in the sight of the white-skinned woman holding her hand on Adam's face, his mouth opened in a soundless scream. Behind them stood a massive white stone. Twenty feet tall and roughly circular, jagged red veins radiated inward towards the center. A small sphere of blackness rippled or vibrated, a small tink sound of rock on rock.

Salem turned to team RWBY. "My, if it isn't the heroes of the day. Tracking me down for months after defeating Cinder just as she finished stealing the Fall Maiden's power. And those damnable silver eyes that have interrupted my cleansing of humanity from Remnant for too long. All your work to stop me from opening my portal to another world, where I can continue my work." With a flick of her left hand, she sent the powerful White Fang leader to smash against the white stone. His blood left a smear of blood in an arc before he landed bonelessly.

"She's the one that Qrow warned us about. The heart of darkness at the center of the Grimm," Ruby said, silver eyes flashing.

"I am Salem. You think you can _freeze_ me, little girl? Far more powerful Silver-Eyed have tried." Salem smirked, her mouth too wide for her face. Her tongue flicked out, tasting a jagged stream of blackness off of her left hand's fingers. "His soul is delicious."

"You are one sick piece of crap," Yang shouted as she jerked her arms to rachet shotgun shells into her improved gauntlets. "And we are going to stop you."

"That... is impossible. Because this heart of the void has traveled to another world. And there is nothing you can do to _undo_ that.

The four huntresses crouched down, only to blink as Salem's white skin flaked away as an invisible wind scoured her away. In just a moment, her body abraded away into nothingness.

"Hmph. That was anticlimactic," Weiss said, hand still on her saber's hilt.

"What did she mean?" Blake asked as she moved over to check Adam for a pulse. His chilled flesh felt like a man dead for hours.

"This feels like a Grimm," Ruby said, studying the massive flat-faced stone.

Weiss sheathed Bliztenaster and walked over to it. "There's something written in ancient Seraphinum. I don't recognize more than a word or two, but this says world," she said pointing at one pictograph. "And this one mean gate."

"So she wasn't likely to be lying about opening a portal to a new world." Blake put her hand on the stone. She felt a tug on her aura.

And tried to pull her hand away.

"Guys?" the faunus said, a note of worry in her voice as she tugged harder.

"Oh, hell no!" Yang shouted, running up and grabbing her partner.

"Yang!" Ruby shouted, running up to help as she slipped her weapon onto the back of her belt.

Weiss narrowed her eyes as she saw Blake's hand drawing into the surface of the stone. The chamber of her trusty weapon switched over to lightning dust even as a glyph appeared beneath her. She slammed the point of her saber down on the ground, unleashing a blast of lightning as wide as its curved blade.

Blake felt the force double under the attack. "Don't do that again! It increased its pull."

"Sorry," Weiss replied, not sounding very sorry at all. That, at least, had not changed.

"Uh oh."

"What do you mean, 'uh oh', Ruby?" Weiss said as her blood pressure skyrocketed.

"I can't let go to get a better grip," Ruby said softly as she struggled with both arms.

"Shit, me either," Yang said. "My left arm won't detach either."

Ruby turned to look at Weiss. "Get out of here. Someone needs to tell them what-"

"No. We did not go through everything to leave me the last survivor. I told you that I would follow you through the gates of hell. We'll either win together or lose together," the older girl said as she put her own hands around Ruby's waist. "Now pull."

They all started to follow her order, only to see all the red veins in the white rock pulse brighter. The force increased dramatically. Ruby flared her eyes, trying to fight the strange Grimm in front of them.

With that flash of light, they disappeared.

* * *

Splut.

All four girls found themselves on their back in foul smelling, muddy water.

"Everyone alive?" Ruby shouted even as she swiped the nasty water out of her eyes. This smelled worse than the ocean.

"Yo! Still 5/6ths alive here," Yang called out as she sat up, pumping a metallic fist.

"I'm thinking of committing suicide over this smell, but I'm alive." Weis scrambled to her feet even as she reached in to her ever present fanny pack for a cleansing wipe. "Where are we?"

"Not the deep wilds of Vacuo," Blake said. "There's a city off in the distance. About the size of Vale."

Ruby looked around, seeing that they all had a liberal coating of muck and grime. "Let's get out of this mire. Blake, you lead."

She just nodded and headed towards the rising land towards the mountains.

Twenty minutes later, they found dry land and a path. Blake ignored the path, continuing past it to the scrub brush and stunted grass.

"What the hell is wrong with this place?" Yang said, hating how gross she felt.

"An arid region. Must be underground water." Blake narrowed her eyes as she looked towards the nearest mountains, the sun high in the air above them. "I've got a bad feeling-"

The roar of some engine filled the air, dragging their eyes to stare in surprise at a very odd airship. The long, bullet shape tapered to a point at the end. Angled wings adorned the sides and tail, with one lone vane standing at the tail. Two turbine engines dragged the large vehicle at a steep climb.

As the roar faded, everyone stared at each other.

"I don't think we are in Zo anymore," Yang said. "Zo very lost!"

Yang's pun caused all the other girl's to groan, exactly like she planned.

"That thing really moves," Blake said as she watched it fly higher and higher up into the sky. "About as fast as an Atlasian combat flyer."

"Weird," Weiss said as she watched it also. "Atlas built some non-hover capable vehicles, but they never really caught on as they were fragile."

Ruby scanned the air for any threats, her eyes alighting on the small moon just above the horizon with the sun at her back. "Uh, guys? Can I have you check the Moon right there?"

"It's too small and I don't see any fragments," Blake said.

"That's what I saw. We're not on Remnant any more?"

"So what do they call this place? The Whole?"

Everyone groaned at Yang's horrible pun again.

"Hmm. Well, we still need to head to that civilization." Weiss contemplated what sort of society they had.

Another half hour (and two landing and two take offs from the airship port) they made it to a main road. A main road _filled_ high speed vehicles. One of the vehicles pulled off to the side of the road and back up seventy feet with its blinkers on. The girls shared a look and walked up.

An older man with gray hair and a business suit stuck his head out the window and shouted... something... at them over the road noise.

"Huh? Why can't we understand him?" Ruby asked the older girls.

"I dunno. Ask the genius over there," Yang said, gesturing at Weiss with her cybernetic arm's fist and thumb.

"There was that old story that before there were Hunters, blindness of the soul afflicted civilization with the lack of being able to talk to each other. Every kingdom had their own spoken language _and_ writing system. Archeology actually supports this, as many strange writings exist before the Kingdom of Atlansis," Weiss explained while studying the concerned looking man.

"So... we unlock his aura and we can talk?" Blake asked.

"Only one way to test it," Yang said.

"Wait. Yang, with your gauntlets out you look ready to attack. Weiss and I have our weapons visible. So-" Blake said, only to be interrupted by Ruby.

"I need to do it!" Ruby put a smile on her face, walking up slowly and held out her hands.

The older man looked a bit suspicious, but let her put a hand on his sternum.

 _"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee."_ Ruby smiled, then looked worried. "Can you understand us now?"

"What the _hell_ was that?" he demanded as he watched the glow around his hands fade away.

"Yay! Communications established!" Ruby exclaimed, pumping a fist in victory. "I awakened the light of your soul!"

"Dork," Yang called out.

"Are you kids alright? You look like you are in trouble," the stranger said, studying them closer.

"Uh, well, not really okay," Ruby said as her shoulders slumped. "I think we got thrown to a whole different world or something. So what's the name of your kingdom?"

The other three members of Team RWBY groaned theatrically.

"Um, the United States of America." The man looked really freaked out at this point. "Look, I'm going to call the police so you can talk to them, okay?"

The girls all looked at each other and shrugged.

Fifteen minutes, an official looking vehicle with red and blue lights on it pulled up on the side of the busy road. A sturdy woman in a uniform with a badge on the right breast pocket walked over. She started to talk to the first man.

"We still can't understand them. Are we going to have to awaken everyone's Aura?" Blake asked, frowning slightly.

"Hmm. Perhaps we need to get one of them to push their Aura into ours?" Weiss said. "But he did not seem to know anything about using an Aura.

The policewoman walked over and started asking them questions. After the third question, to which all the girls just shrugged at, she pulled out a note and started reading questions off the back.

"She's, uh, wanting to know what language you are speaking. And asking you all those different ones doesn't seem to work," the bemused samaritan said.

"You guys have more than one?" Ruby blurted out.

"Just call it the language of Remnant," Weiss said curtly.

He did tell her something in his language. That led to a short, intense conversation between the two as another police car showed up.

"Do you guys have any identification?" he asked for the policewoman.

"I've got my scroll! It has my hunter certification on it," Ruby said, pulling out her scroll. She stretched it out to the size of a large tablet and then pulled up her license.

"Okay, I may have to reconsider that you aren't nuts, but that _I_ am. Because if we had $ !^# like that, I would have heard about them. Um, could you do that thing you did to me to her?"

"Um, I'm a little tired. Guys?" Ruby asked her team.

"I'll do it," Weiss said, slowing approaching the policewoman. She put her hand on her and intoned the mantra, pushing her Aura into activation. Afterwards, she turned her head back to her team. "Her Aura wasn't active either. Is it possible these people don't know how to unlock their Auras? But how do they fight their Grimm?"

"Huh, she has a pretty strong Aura with how much it is glowing," Yang said, tilting her head slightly.

"This is very disturbing, especially now that I can understand you." The policewoman visibly took control of herself. "But first let me get some information. My name is Officer Matilda Ayers of the Utah Highway Patrol. If I could get your names and what happened to you?"

"Um, can I go? I'm like late for work," the gray haired man said even as he pulled out a small cell phone from his pocket.

"Leave your contact information with the other officer. So, let's start with you," Ayers said, pointing her pen for the computer tablet she pulled out.

"Weiss Schnee. My team and I were chasing a monstrous villain. We thought she had been cornered, when she... disappeared. She had some sort of Grimm artifact that pulled us from Remnant to here. Wherever _here_ is, mind you." The platinum blonde showed herself to be unperturbed by her disheveled state, covered in drying mud.

Ayers stared at the pale young woman. "What is Remnant? And what is the Grimm?"

Ruby swallowed. "Remnant is our world. It's always been called Remnant, since it is all that is left." And it had very little left at all after Salem's plans for the four kingdoms came to fruition.

"And you are?" Ayers asked.

"I'm Ruby Rose! This is my half-sister Yang Xiao Long. And last but not least is Blake Belladonna!" She cut herself off from blurting out their team name.

"And other than the computer tablet-"

"Scroll," Weiss corrected.

"-scroll, do you have anything else that might show you are from this Remnant place?"

"Um. Well, I suppose Weiss or I could show off our semblances. Weiss?"

"It was your idea. Besides, you like to show off your speed," her friend noted with a very small smile.

"Yes!" Ruby looked excited. She decided to head back across the field.

"Just so you are aware, I am recording this with my body cam and my phone," the policewoman explained even as she tapped buttons on the screen of the smart phone.

"Okay, I'm going to zip past that abadoned house and then back that way. Ready, set... GO!" Ruby kept it to a minimal speed as she left her signature rose petals behind her.

The honks of horns and the screech of rubber as drivers on the interstate fell into that worst of habits; rubbernecking.


	2. The Whole Earth

Yang looked out the back seat window as the downtown section of this 'Utah' place as they drove along. Wide streets, older buildings and strange traffic lights met her amethyst eyes. "It sorta looks like Vale sometimes," she said to her partner.

"The streets are wider with more vehicle traffic, less foot traffic," she replied back.

The black sedan turned into an entrance, following the car that carried Ruby and Weiss. The armored garage door closed behind them as they entered a parking garage.

"Concrete makes the world go round, eh?" the blonde said, trying to get a reaction. Tried and failed, it appeared. "What's wrong, Blake?"

"The guards here only carry small pistols. The first Grimm they run into will kill a lot of them. Unless they don't have Grimm?" Blake said mostly for her own benefit.

"I dunno. But I don't think so. Call it a hunch."

The sedan pulled into a parking spot near a door. _Much_ more heavily armed men exited a metal double-door, taking up positions around the area. Yang noted that they left their guns pointing down as they scanned the area. All of them wore some sort of medium armor in black with three letters on their chest a simple rifle with large magazines.

"Yeesh. They look like they are ready to go Grimm hunting," Yang said as she exited the car.

"Or war." Blake studied them with her typical cool and calm look.

From the other black sedan, Ruby hopped out and looked around. Seeing Yang, she calmed slightly. "Yang!" she called out, waving her hand high.

Their driver, a bald man in a bad suit, just chuckled at her antics. He said something to Officer Ayers, then pointed towards the doors casually.

"They want you to come in and get debriefed and try to figure out what is going on," Ayers said, translating as she walked to the door and opened it. The small foyer beyond the door had only a hallway across from the door, a desk with a security officer in a blue shirted uniform and metal detector. The policewoman talked with the officer and removed her belt and holster. "We have to leave our weapons here."

Ruby's silver eyes widened comically. "You want me to leave Crescent Rose here?"

"Not a biggie, it's just like Beacon. I need to clean the muck out of my gauntlets," her older sister replied as she removed her gauntlets without collapsing them..

"I don't like it, but we really don't have much of a choice. They don't seem bad..." Blake said, narrowing her eyes.

"-and they could have pointed all those nasty guns at us." Weiss pulled out her saber, then stopped. "What's wrong with my Dust?"

"What?" the three girls asked, looking at the weapon with its transplanted revolver-chamber.

Weiss unlocked the chamber, flipping it to look in the Dust chambers. "There's some clear crystals diluting the Dust." She took a pinch of red Dust out and ignited it with her Aura. Instead of exploding, it fizzled and sparked.

"Can it wait?" Ayers asked, looking at the weapon in consternation.

"I guess, but I want to see what's going on with it later," Weiss replied in a very reluctant voice.

With a little work (as Ruby and Weiss's weapons were larger than the weapons locker) they tried to go through the metal detector. Only Blake and Weiss did not set it off like an alarm. Ruby had far too many buckles (and her three extra magazines for her weapon) and Yang had her arm.

"It doesn't come off," Yang said in a very even voice. "And it took me ages to get a Hunter qualified cybernetic."

Ayers frowned. "What happened, if you don't mind me asking?"

"A genocidal maniac cut it off before trying to kill me and my partner," the woman said in a curt tone.

Blake put her hand on Yang's remaining arm. "Yang, they couldn't know."

The policewoman nodded and tried to look sympathetic. Then she followed the bald agent deeper into the building and finally to a conference room.

"Agent Bradley here wants you to know that you have been accused of no crimes and this is not an interrogation. The United States government merely wishes to try to see what we can do to help you," Ayers explained.

"Um, why don't we just unlock his aura so he can talk to us?" Yang asked as she flopped onto an uncomfortable chair.

"There is some worry about what you are doing. Considering it can pass your spoken language to a person, they are not sure that it can't pass anything else," the policewoman said.

"That's rather intriguing that you deduced something like that." Weiss tapped her pointing finger to her chin. "It's not totally unfounded."

"Eh?" Ruby exclaimed, eyes wide.

"There were rumors from the Great War that both sides tried to brainwash spies using Aura and Semblance techniques."

Ayers fake coughed, covering her mouth with her hand.

"So, about this Aura thing. Could you explain it more?"

"Not much to it. We unlocked the light of your soul so that we could cure the Soul Blindness, right Weiss? So it allows us to talk to you, makes you tougher, stronger and you'll develop a Semblance; a special power like Ruby's speed and Weiss's glyphs," Yang explained.

"So it turns you into a superhuman?" Ayers squeaked out.

"Um, yeah. I guess that's a good term for it." The blonde gave her a shrug.

Matilda Ayers stared at her hand, trying to will them to glow. And they _did._

That prompted another, longer conversation with the bald agent. Back and forth they talked for almost five minutes.

"What did he ask?" Weiss asked.

"Mostly about that Aura stuff. I now get to be tested." She gave them a shrug.

"Um, don't take this rudely, but how do you guys fight the Grimm without Aura?" Ruby asked where as sat attentively at the table.

The policewoman hesitated. "What are the Grimm?"

All four young women stared at her in surprise.

"You don't have those soulless monsters wandering the wilderness and attacking any of your kingdoms?" Ruby blurted out.

"Can you please explain everything you can about these Grimm?" the native asked very carefully.

* * *

 _The drying mud quivered and cracked only fifty feet away from a large gathering of men and women cordoning off an area where the tracks of four girls appeared. Beady red eyes studied the situation through the cracks. New instincts warred within itself; attack or hide._

 _It slithered off underground, heading north towards... Unhappiness. Fear. Depression. Anger._

 _Half an hour later, it felt a rhythmic beat on the earth. Slithering faster, it curved towards the movement. It burst out of the ground next to a pudgy man in exercise clothing jogging on the side of a street. He screamed loudly as the Creeper jumped forward and ripped him apart into chunks._

 _Fear tasted good, the dim and evil consciousness felt._

 _And started to understand._


	3. Tense Affairs

The smell of food perked up Team RWBY, as they all turned to look at the group entering the conference room.

"We brought you a variety of food items. So hopefully something will taste good to you," Agent Bradley said through their translator.

Matilda did not roll her eyes at that.

"Food!" Yang exclaimed, looking over the different boxes and bags of food.

A full cooked chicken in a plastic container, several sandwiches, burgers, boxes of Chinese food and even a pizza lay on the table. The girls started to carefully nibble a taste of the foods.

"Oh, this is like that Vacouan stir fry." Yang took a bite, frowning. "More sweet and not as hot."

"We weren't sure on how spicy you would want your food," the police officer explained, grabbing a deli sandwich for herself.

The door opened as Team RWBY ate their lunch, finding most of the food either good or at least tolerable. The skinny man in a suit walked over to Bradley, whispering in his ear.

"Um," Matilda said, narrowing her eyes. She listened closely, then turned to the girl. "A jogger was murdered. It looks like he was brutally torn apart."

Ruby met each of her team mate's eyes, frowning.

"Is there any way we can see a picture of the body?" Blake asked, her ears twitching.

"Are you sure?"

All the girls nodded. Agent Bradley handed over a large, clunky scroll. The torn up body pictured on its screen could make a mortician feel ill.

To the four of them it only elicited minor unease and discerning looks.

"Beowulf or Creep?" Yang asked.

"I can't tell from the victim alone. Ruby, Blake; you're the trackers. You should be able to tell from the tracks, right?" Weiss asked.

"Yes, Weiss," Ruby said with a roll of her eyes, making herself look three years younger than her eighteen years.

They turned back to Matilda, but she turned back to Agent Bradley to speak in a hushed tone.

"This is getting damn annoying," Yang said, folding her arms over her bust.

Ruby nodded. She considered the matter for ten seconds, then stood up and walked over to Matilda. "Officer? I need you to do something for me."

"Sure, that should be okay. What do you want me to do?" the older woman asked.

"Please stand up." Ruby took the woman's hand and placed it on her sternum. "I want you to try to push your aura into me, focusing on sharing your language."

"Ooookay." Matilda did not look thrilled. In fact, she looked quite the opposite. She started to glow and then her aura flared at her hand.

With a fwaumping boom, they were thrown apart to the different sides of the room.

"Officer Ayers, what the hell did you think you were doing?" Agent Bradley demanded.

"Success! It worked," Ruby called out, a fist shooting up in a half-victory pose from her place on the ground. "Whew, a bit woozy."

"Ruby, you dolt. You could have injured someone," Weiss said, even as she helped pull Ruby back up to her feet.

"What is a success?" Bradley asked. No, demanded really.

Weiss blinked, looking over at him. "I can understand him now?"

"No way? That's all it takes. High five, Ruby!" Yang called out, sisters swatting each other's hand.

"You have got to be kidding," Blake said, her voice filled with long suffering.

"Agent Bradley, I think they were saying they might be able to track it, even if they don't know what it is," Matilda told the Special Agent of the FBI.

He narrowed his eyes, feeling the sweat building on his bald head. "I need to make a call and authorize it."

* * *

Yang shaded her eyes with her right hand, using her cybernetic limb as casually as she had her old flesh and blood limb. She hopped out of the back of the black van. Across another busy road with cars roaring buy at insane speeds, large houses sat on dull green lawns.

Somehow it all looked vulnerable, open.

Ruby and Blake moved over.

"Has to be a Creep," Blake said.

"Blake, backtrack it to see if you can find where it surfaced. I want to know if there are more. Or if there is a Grimm Tarpit," her leader said as she stood up, her scythe extending out. The curved blades of the scythe snapped into place.

"What the hell is that?" Agent Bradley asked as he dabbed his forehead. He waved a couple of the SWAT team to follow the girl.

"Crescent Rose? She my scythe-sniper-rifle. With extras," Ruby said as she started to trot along the ground, following the faint trail of Creep's underground path.

Matilda had her service pistol out, finger off the trigger. She did not want to be unarmed when the Huntresses ran out with their weapons at the ready.

Weiss ran after her partner, her saber in her hand. The curved blade caught the Sun, reminding her that her old Myrtenaster had been retooled into Bliztenaster. "Do you think it went far?"

"It doesn't seem to want to cross that busy road," Ruby said in a tone of good cheer.

"Yes, less civilians to endanger," the platinum-blonde replied in agreement.

"So this Creep thing we are following? How dangerous is it?" Matilda asked as she led the trio of natives.

"It's a very weak Grimm, on par of the likes of the smallest Nevermore. And I think we caught up to it." Ruby started to circle the area. "This is weird. It's hiding under ground."

"It couldn't have dug itself deeper than you can track?" one of the heavily armed men asked.

"Not that I've heard. I think it's right there about three feet down. Hmm. How to draw it out?" the redhead asked her partner.

"Let me try to draw it out with an explosion," Weiss said as she changed her stance, standing taller and more stiffly. Her glyph appeared in front of her even as the revolver chamber on her weapon clicked over to red dust. With a jab, a shot of fire lanced over to the end of the trail.

The boom echoed over the area, but really only scorched the grass in the field.

"Still some impurity in the Dust," Weiss complained.

The Creep erupted from the ground, landing on its legs and bent over tail. It hissed, blood red eyes under its head-plate looking around at the enemies gathered around it. It snapped in's

Ruby dashed forward, swinging her scythe. The monster tried to dodge the attack, so only a foot of its tail. Matilda and the two SWAT officers opened fire.

Their guns _sounded_ wrong to Weiss. The heiress snapped out two slashes, driving the Creep back and wounding it.

The Creep staggered backwards for Ruby to finish it off by impaling it on the point of her scythe. It immediately started to flake away into black smoke and ash.

Crescent Rose clacked back to its compact travel form. "Tada!"

Weiss shook her head ever so slightly and then murmured in a soft tone, "Dolt." They turned to walk back to the rest of the large group of police and government officials.

Matilda walked next to one of the SWAT officers. "Well, this has been a day, Darrell."

"I get to add 'monster slayer' to my resume, so yeah. Bit of an understatement, Ayers," he joked back.

Another Creep erupted from the ground behind them. Each reacted instinctively, trying to push the other away. Matilda won, as her Aura allowed her to shove him five feet away. She fell onto her back as the Creep snapped and bit at her face and neck even as she desperately fended it off with her forearms.

The booming sound of Ruby's sniper rifle sounded, blowing the Creep's head clean off.

"Weiss, shoot a blue flare into the sky. I'm going to see if Matilda is still okay," Ruby ordered, trotting up.

Her partner nodded, shooting a blazing blue shot of dust into the air to explode with a bright flash.

Matilda scrambled back frantically.

"Whoa! Whoa! Calm down!" Ruby called out. No blood that she could see. "Your Aura protected you."

"What? Really?" the police officer called out. She ripped the rents of her sleeves open wider, finding only a couple of very light scratches. "Son of a bitch. It was biting me!?"

"Aura is cool," Ruby said as Weiss walked up.

Weiss, for her part, kept calm and silent. She pulled out her Scroll and tapped several buttons. "Hmm. Only about half depleted. Give it a few minutes and it should recover shortly."

Matilda blinked at the young woman with her scarred face. "You can measure a soul?"

"Well... yes? Is that a problem?" Weiss asked as she compacted her Scroll down to its smallest form and put it in her pouch.

"The Atheists are going to hate you."

Weiss tapped a finger on her chin. "And I should care why? The Grimm attack any human. Or faunus." She poked the disturbed earth. "Think there are any more down there?"

"I don't know." Ruby frowned as she noted her sister and her partner running over to them. "Both of them should have popped up at the same time."

"So we need a brute force solution to flush them out. So Yang."

"Hey! You Yang for me?" the blonde said, a smile on her face again.

Ruby just shook her head. "Okay, Yang. We need you to hit the ground hard enough to force any Grimm out."

"Give me a lift, Weiss!" she replied, giving her a thumbs up.

Weiss rolled her eyes even as she created a glyph to fling Yang straight up fifty feet into the air.

"Yeeeaaaaaah!" Yang shouted as she came down for a three point landing, fist blasting the dirt at the last moment.

The ground _rolled_ like a liquid. Another Creep appeared and the three remaining Huntresses killed it before it could even land on the ground.

"Okay, that's more normal. There's never just one Creep," Ruby said with a hearty nod of her head.

Special Agent Bradley and the whole group of police and FBI agents ran up. "Get a sample of that whatever it is coming off the corpses. And why am I only seeing one corpse," Bradley demanded.

"Grimm dissolve into that ash fades away. And they just die after a day or so of being in captivity. Makes it harder to study them," Blake said as she sheathed her long, straight blade. Her ears twitched as she heard more vehicles drive up.

"Yes, that would make it harder." Bradley half-turned to look at the gathering news vans at the edge of the road _recording everything._ "So when can we expect another attack?"

The girls all turned to each other. After a few seconds, they all shrugged.

"You have to understand, even though we know about how to fight the Grimm, finding ourselves on another world where the Grimm have been sent is all new to us," Weiss explained. "But at least with us, we might be able to help you learn to fight the Grimm without making drastic mistakes."

"And what if _you_ were the ones that brought these things to our world?" he demanded.

"Then we're idiots. And a lot of people are going to die because you won't listen to us," Blake told him bluntly.

* * *

"...and we will continue to get a statement from the local and federal authorities. So Jennifer, what do you think? Fake hoax or something that we don't understand?" the reporter said to his co-worker, live on CNN.

"We're continuing to check with all TV and movie production companies that are in the area. The fact that local police and FBI agents are on site seems to suggest something real is happening. Or that they are already investigating," the brunette replied.

The first reporter nodded. "Everyone is being tight lipped and the response of the day is 'no comment'. Have we gotten any more information about the victims?"

"Nothing yet, John. The police have admitted that someone was killed, but they are withholding the name or names until the family is notified."

John put his hand to his ear. "This is breaking new, America. We've just received video from the location. We do caution people to be aware that we can not confirm this video through third parties."

The picture, low resolution and grainy, showed two girls in costumes, a woman in a police uniform and two heavily geared up police SWAT officer. The appearance of a two legged Creep appeared, nightmarish even with what you could see.

"Is that a monster?" Jennifer asked in a low tone of voice. It felt like those red eyes could actually see her.


End file.
